Computerchairgeneral

This actually isn’t a terrible use of an LLM. It’s actually kind of refreshing to see a news story about a beneficial use of it in a very specific context.

Ridiculous, but depressingly unsurprising.

Honestly, perfectly understandable that she would want to quit. Tons of content creators burn out after making the same type of thing day in and day out. Walking away when it’s not fun anymore is better than sticking with something that makes you miserable.

Well, the leopards are eating good again.

Been bouncing between Wizordum and Void Stranger over the last few days. Wizordum is a fun “boomer shooter” that takes a lot of inspiration from games like Hexen and I’ve been enjoying mowing down monsters with fireballs and a magical shotgun. Void Stranger I’m still not sure how I feel about. Heard it mentioned a few times as a very meta game with a lot of layers. In theory I like games like that. Figuring out the core puzzle gameplay of moving blocks around has been fun, even if I don’t consider myself that great at puzzles, but the meta stuff is riding that fine line between being just cryptic enough to be intriguing to being so cryptic that I’m not sure how I’m supposed to figure this out without a guide.

Good luck with that, I guess? Don’t really see that stopping anyone. If something can be modded into the game someone will mod it into the game.

Glad to see the campaign still going strong. Almost being past the minimum threshold requirement for seven countries is impressive. Hopefully it can reach one million signatures, even if I’m a little skeptical about the EU taking this seriously and passing a decent law. Still, anything that keeps the topic on peoples minds is a good thing.

Sega is definitely winning the console war now.

I have a lot of nostalgia for The Force Unleashed, but even playing it back then I remember thinking the combat was kind of rough. I can only imagine how dated the gameplay must feel for someone picking it up for the first time these days. The idea of being this unstoppable Force-user was cool, but from what I remember the game struggled to live up to that promise. Like pulling down the Star Destroyer. It was everywhere in the marketing to show just how powerful you were going to be, but in the game itself it was just this tedious section that dragged on longer than it needed to. At least that’s how I remember it.

I’ve been working my way through the Baldur’s Gate series after putting about ninety hours in BG3. BG1 was fun even if the story was a bit predictable and generic, although it did feel like playing through a DnD campaign. Really enjoyed Shadows of Amn, but Throne of Bhaal just turned into a slog at the end. I think the most interesting part of playing through the trilogy was watching Bioware’s style develop over the course of the three games. As someone who was introduced to Bioware through Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire I’ve always thought Bioware’s character writing stood out, especially in the old days, so it was a bit jarring to play through BG1 where the companions feel more like hirelings you pick up for their class rather than full-fledged characters. BG2 felt more like a classic Bioware game with banter, romance, and companion quests, although the Real Time advancement system kept glitching out on me. I was hoping to move on to Planescape: Torment after TOB, but I’m feeling burnt out on Infinity Engine games. So right now I’m trying to find something in the Summer Sale to serve as a palate cleanser.

Accidents happen. Your finger slips and suddenly your game is full of Nazi symbols. Happens all the time. Also, I get the gist of Garriss’s response, but mentioning that he had men and women at his house and his mother was always present just makes things sound weirder than a simple denial. Sounds like a horrible situation all around.

Good. This was a terrible idea. Even setting aside all the privacy concerns, which are numerous, how well would this have even worked? Trusting algorithms to guess the age of users was only going to result in a ton of people not being able to play a game because the algorithm decided they look like twelve-year olds.

I’m impressed at how well thought out this battle plan is. I’m usually pessimistic when it comes to governments taking pro-consumer stances, but then again all it takes is one government siding against game companies to set a precedent. Hopefully this picks up steam and gets to a wider audience. It feels like one of the few things gamers can agree on these days is how much they hate business practices like this.

Because the games are good? Does their need to be a deeper reason then that? I mean, I guess a boom in retro games among Gen Z and younger says something about the state of the modern industry, but younger generations have always liked older things despite entertainment industries trying to push them towards the shiny and new. Still definitely nice to see though.

Fingers crossed its not a buggy, unoptimized mess on launch.

Still a relatively small number, but its good to see the unionization trend expanding beyond QA testers.

I have an unhealthy cycle of this with Hearts of Iron IV a WW2 grand strategy game. I’ll realize the embarrassing number of hours that I’ve put into the game and then I’ll stop playing for a while. But then one of the big mods for it will update and then I dive back in and lose a weekend and then the process repeats.

The other game I consistently come back to is Threads of Fate or Dewprism it’s a PS1 action-RPG with dual protagonists where each one has their own campaign or story to play through. I guess it’s nostalgia that keeps me coming back to it, but it really wasn’t a favorite game growing up and I didn’t beat it until years after I’d gotten it. But every few years I’ll just remember it out of the blue and get the urge to play through it again.

I’m really tired of politicians who barely understand the internet trying to write sweeping legislation to regulate it.

The thing that gets me about this is that it’s always some nefarious outside group pressuring devs to make their games “woke” or whatever. It never seems to occur to these people that the people making the games might actually hold those beliefs and aren’t being forced to put them in games at gunpoint. Also, did the guy complaining about Ragnarok play GoW 2018? The fact that Kratos isn’t the same person he was in the old series is basically the entire point.

The delivery of these lines makes them feel like the ones you see in unfinished content where they have some random person do the lines because they haven’t cast a voice actor for the part yet.